Four Time Africa Best Player Of The Year Added To Egypt ‘terror List’

Four Time Africa Best Player Of The Year Added To Egypt ‘terror List’

An Egyptian criminal court has listed Four times African Footballer of the year player Mohammed Abou-Treika, in one of the country’s all-time greatest terror list.

Abou-Treika was known as the Egyptian Magician, winning an unprecedented four African Footballer of the Year award helping Cairo’s Al-Ahly to its eighth African Champions League title before retiring in late 2013, was accused of funding a group of Muslim Brotherhood, a sect the government declared a terrorist organisation in late 2013, which the Egyptian government had to freeze the former Al-Ahly player’s asset.

Meanwhile, the country’s anti-terror states that any citizen placed on a terror list is subjected not to travel, and having their passport and assets seized.

The player’s legal handler Mohamed Osman said that the criminal court verdict was “illegal” because his client “has not been convicted” of any criminal offence which is a precondition to place him on terror lists.

Mohamed Osman said they will appeal the wrongful decision taken by the government committee, as Abou-Treika’s asset freezes still in place despite lifting the ban by a court ruling in 2016.

Abou-Treika runs commentary in the on-going Africa Cup of Nation in Gabon, as Osman has officially refused to indicate when his client might return to his home country.

A former member of Egyptian parliament’s budget planning and commission Ashraf Bader bn Aldin says: “the government is accusing this small number of people of all of Egypt’s failures”.

“All of the people are accused of different things like harming the economy and spreading false information … and are blamed for the rise of unemployment among other things,” Bader Aldin, who is also included in the “terror list”, told Al Jazeera.

“It doesn’t make any sense. Also, the ‘terrorists’ on the list are placed there for three years. If we are ‘terrorists’, why are we listed only for three years?”

However, the accusation comes after the player publicly supported the Brotherhood’s Morsi to become president in 2012 elections.